Attraction #2: A Sorting Hat-based adventure

Image: Joel, Flickr (license)

As sprawling and diverse as Universal Studios’ Wizarding World of Harry Potter has become, there’s still nothing that offers guests the opportunity to take advantage of another quintessential Hogwarts tradition: The Sorting Hat ceremony. While any Harry Potter fan can log onto Rowling’s official Pottermore website and get sorted into Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff, an online quiz pales in comparison to having a “real” magic hat read out your fate to a gaggle of enthusiastic Hogwarts students in the Great Hall.

Granted, such an experience would likely be far too complicated and drawn-out to be feasible for the thousands of guests that come pouring into Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley every day, but given today’s advanced technology, it’s not an entirely impossible endeavor. In recent years, virtual reality (VR) tech has been outfitted on various roller coasters around the country, from Six Flags to SeaWorld, and some of the overlays have even allowed for customized experiences.

Had Disney been able to devote more space to a Harry Potter attraction—something akin to Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, maybe—it’s conceivable that they could have combined the choose-your-own-adventure style of Star Tours – The Adventures Continue and a VR-enhanced roller coaster to create a truly unique experience. After donning VR headsets, guests boarding the coaster might have started the ride with the Sorting Hat selection process, then been whisked away on an adventure specific to their Hogwarts house: evading the Whomping Willow in a stolen car, taking on the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, or even competing in the Triwizard Tournament.

Such an attraction would not only have given guests access to some iconic moments in Harry Potter canon (most of which, it should be noted, befell Gryffindor students) but would also have remained flexible enough to allow Rowling and Disney to expand the storylines with the addition of the Fantastic Beasts series, among other tangentially-related stories. Or, to put it in words Walt Disney might have used, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.”

Attraction #3: The Quidditch match of a lifetime

Image: Alexandre Breveglieri, Flickr (license)

Long before Harry Potter and his wizarding pals enchanted theme park guests at Universal Studios, Walt Disney and his Imagineers demonstrated their understanding of the elements needed to bring fairy stories to life in the real world. When Disneyland opened to visitors in the summer of 1955, it offered them an opportunity to hop aboard mine carts and pirate ships as they skirted the Old Hag in Snow White’s Adventures and sailed high above Neverland with Wendy, John, and Michael Darling.

The key to a truly immersive experience, Walt discovered, was making guests feel like the hero in their own story. That’s why those first dark rides seldom featured any known protagonists; you never saw Snow White dashing away from her evil stepmother or Peter Pan leading his troupe of Lost Boys through the pirate-infested island. You, the rider, were expected to step into the protagonist’s shoes and play out the adventure yourself.

Had Disney applied that same logic to their Harry Potter attraction proposal, they might have brainstormed other rides and experiences where parkgoers got to move through the Wizarding World as the boy wizard and/or his friends. Combined with the technology found in, say, Soarin’ Around the World or Avatar Flight of Passage, guests could have stepped into the cleats of a Quidditch player and been thrust into the starring role during a cutthroat match between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Instead of jumping on banshees and soaring through sunset-colored vistas over the Valley of Mo’ara, riders would step astride a Firebolt and take to the skies above the pitch. After all, have you truly stepped foot in the Wizarding World without feeling what it’s like to fly above the spires of Hogwarts?

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As much fun as it is to speculate about the kind of attractions and experiences Disney could’ve used to bring Rowling’s creations to life, it’s worth mentioning that the original ideas they proposed still had some merit. According to Hill, the Care of Magical Creatures Petting Zoo would have incorporated at least a few Audio-Animatronics, making it the perfect vehicle to later showcase Newt Scamander’s bizarre and lovable creatures from his adventures in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And while we don’t have further details about the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin-esque ride through a Defence Against the Dark Arts class, it would undoubtedly have been more thrilling to practice casting spells against Boggarts, Cornish Pixies, or Dementors than to take down Evil Emperor Zurg with toy laser pistols.

In the end, however, it’s a good thing Universal got ahold of Harry Potter when it did. The Disney Parks simply didn’t have the space or drive to build out the Wizarding World on such an extensive level. More than that, Disney’s own movie-based areas like Cars Land, Pandora – The World of Avatar, and the still-forthcoming Star Wars Land were at least partially inspired by the desire to outdo Universal’s Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. Had Rowling not abandoned a potential partnership with Disney, we might not have seen theme parks enter into the celebrated era of fully-immersive, story-based environments this quickly—if at all.